"The Forms of Things Unknown" | |
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The Outer Limits episode | |
Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 32 |
Directed by | Gerd Oswald |
Written by | Joseph Stefano |
Cinematography by | Conrad Hall |
Production code | 24 |
Original air date | May 4, 1964 |
Guest appearances | |
"The Forms of Things Unknown" is an episode of the original The Outer Limits television show. It first aired on May 4, 1964, and was the final episode of the first season. The title derives from William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream , Act 5, Scene 1.
Much of the footage from this episode was used in a pilot episode for an unsold suspense/horror anthology series entitled The Unknown. It was created, witten and produced by Joseph Stefano. Leslie Stevens was the executive producer. The unaired pilot is also named “The Unknown” and was commissioned by ABC who later declined to green-light the proposed series. About its development, Dominic Stefano says his father, Joseph Stefano,
“. . . re(wrote) that original script of “The Forms of Things Unknown” into two different scripts. One called “Madmen and Lovers” and one called “The Forms of Things Unknown”. . .(He) then rewrote both yet again. “Lovers and Madmen” became “The Unknown,” and they filmed the pilot simultaneously. . .They used some common scenes between the two, but changed the story for the pilot because it had a different purpose.” [1]
In the French countryside, playboy Andre Pavan drives with Kassia Paine and Leonora Edmond. While stopped for a swim at a small lake, Andre gloats about recently blackmailing Leonora's father and demands the women make him a drink. They poison it and load his corpse into the trunk of the car. While searching for a burial location, they see a funeral procession that puts Leonora on edge. That night during a thunderstorm, lightning flashes makes her believe the corpse had blinked.
They go to a nearby house, and are greeted by Colas, who is blind. He informs them that Mr Hobart is not at home but will return soon. In the house they see odd decorations including a toy tightrope walker. Hobart returns home and is revealed to be an inventor. He retires, asking not to be disturbed, but the women see that Andre's corpse is in Hobart's room, lying on a strange device.
While Kassia checks the car, Leonora becomes mesmerized by the tightrope walker. Hobart enters and asks her about Andre, and Leonora answers truthfully as if hypnotized. Hobart invites her upstairs to watch him revive Andre and thus free her of her guilt of the murder. He explains that he has invented a device that "tilts" the past to resurrect the dead. Hobart's room is dominated by the time tilter, a large collection of clocks all connected by wires to a pole in the center of the room. The loud ticking overwhelms Leonora who faints, but Hobart is distracted because Andre is missing.
When Leonora awakes, Kassia has returned and Hobart has left to search for Andre. Colas is revealed to be the owner of the house and Hobart is a boarder. Colas claims that Hobart had died and been brought back to life by the time tilter.
Kassia and Leonora try to leave, but the exit is blocked by the trunk of the car. A fully-clothed and living Andre emerges, and Leonora flees. Colas finds Hobart lying in the road who begins searching for Andre to fix the mistake he made in reviving the dead man. Hobart confronts Andre with a pistol. Andre disarms Hobart when he becomes hypnotized by the tightrope walker. Andre shoots the pistol into a chair inches from the inventor's head and tosses the gun aside. Andre leaves with Kassia who jumps from the car. He begins to back the car over her but she leaps out of the way. The car crashes and Andre is killed, returning him to death.
Hobart finds Leonora near an open briefcase in his room. She has found a letter which reveals that Hobart left school to discover a way to return his dead mother to life. Hobart disappears into the time tilter after asking Leonora to destroy it.
The show was filmed with two endings and was allotted double the normal production time. In The Unknown pilot version: Andre reveals there is no Thanatos plant, and thus he was not dead; the time tilter did not in fact work; Hobart was not dead but merely in a coma; and lastly, Kassia uses the pistol to kill Hobart, thinking he is attacking Leonora.[ citation needed ]
The episode is noted for its similarities to Hitchcock's Psycho , for which Joseph Stefano had also written the screenplay. David McCallum's dead-mother obsessed inventor Tone Hobart is analogous to Norman Bates. The episode also draws on Les Diaboliques , a precursor to Psycho, with Vera Miles and Barbara Rush corresponding to Simone Signoret and Vera Clouzot. [2] Bruce Bennett in a review of Outer Limits cited "The Forms of Things Unknown" as a standout episode, describing the screenplay as a blending "Clouzot's Diabolique, James Whale's The Old Dark House , and Stefano's own Psycho screenplay into a hypnotic 51-minute neo-gothic psychodrama pitched somewhere between a fairy tale and a stag film." [3]
This episode was the final acting role of Sir Cedric Hardwicke. He died on August 6, 1964, three months after this episode aired.
Psycho is a 1960 American horror film produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The screenplay, written by Joseph Stefano, was based on the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch. The film stars Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin and Martin Balsam. The plot centers on an encounter between on-the-run embezzler Marion Crane (Leigh) and shy motel proprietor Norman Bates (Perkins) and its aftermath, in which a private investigator (Balsam), Marion's lover Sam Loomis (Gavin) and her sister Lila (Miles) investigate her disappearance.
Norman Bates is a fictional character created by American author Robert Bloch as the main protagonist in his 1959 horror novel Psycho. He has an alter, Mother, who takes from the form of his abusive mother, and later victim, Norma, who in his daily life runs the Bates Motel.
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Joseph William Stefano was an American screenwriter, known for adapting Robert Bloch's novel as the script for Alfred Hitchcock's film Psycho, and for being the producer and co-writer of the original The Outer Limits television series.
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Barbara Rush was an American actress of stage, screen, and television. In 1954, she won the Golden Globe Award for most promising female newcomer for her role in the 1953 American science-fiction film It Came from Outer Space. Later in her career, Rush became a regular performer in the television series Peyton Place, and appeared in TV movies, miniseries, and a variety of other programs, including the soap opera All My Children and the family drama 7th Heaven, as well as starring in films such as The Young Philadelphians, The Young Lions, Robin and the 7 Hoods, and Hombre.
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Psycho is an American horror franchise consisting of six films loosely based on the Psycho novels by Robert Bloch: Psycho, Psycho II, Psycho III, Bates Motel, Psycho IV: The Beginning, the 1998 remake of the original film, and additional merchandise spanning various media. The first film, Psycho, was directed by filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock. Subsequently, another film related to the series was made: an Alfred Hitchcock biopic, and two new novels, by Takekuni Kitayama and Chet Williamson, were released. Also, an independent documentary called The Psycho Legacy was released on October 19, 2010, mostly focusing on Psycho II, Psycho III and Psycho IV: The Beginning, while covering the impact and legacy of the original film.
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